


The Dangerous Guide to Making Friends

by alltoseek



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Kid Fic, Kid John, Kid Sherlock, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-28
Updated: 2014-02-28
Packaged: 2018-01-14 02:33:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1249519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alltoseek/pseuds/alltoseek
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A young Sherlock Holmes turns enemies to friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Dangerous Guide to Making Friends

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NoirRosaleen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoirRosaleen/gifts).
  * Inspired by [What Friends Do](https://archiveofourown.org/works/778735) by [NoirRosaleen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoirRosaleen/pseuds/NoirRosaleen). 



> Contains homophobic insults and abusive language towards a disabled person.
> 
> [Written](http://sherlock-remix.livejournal.com/43842.html) for [Sherlock Remix](sherlock-remix.livejournal.com) round 3.
> 
> Beta'd by the fabulous grassle :-)

Just inside the open gate to a house, a lanky boy sprawled over the doorstep, pondering existence. Eventually his attention was caught by the spectacle of a group of kids coming down the street.

A girl led the way, making painful progress with the aid of crutches. Straggling along behind were a gang of boys, spread across the road, jeering and cat-calling.

“Join the fucking circus, freak!”

“Yeah, you'd make a fortune in the house of horrors!”

“Put a bag over it when you're out in public.”

“Yeah, put a bag over it, lezzy!”

Her face was tight with unshed tears, resigned and determined. The young philosopher on the steps was familiar with that kind of expression. No amount of scarring could disguise it. She'd been severely burnt in a fire some years ago, at least three – no, make it five.

“You're as stupid as your face!”

“Your brain's as slow as your walking!”

“Stupid lesbo!”

As the groups came abreast of the lanky boy on his doorstep, he addressed the largest of the bullies, who was also the closest to the girl. “Why are you harassing her? Insulting her intelligence won't improve your school marks.”

The bully stopped and gaped at posho lounging inside the open gate, surprised at the interruption of their fun. The other boys stopped as well, intrigued by a possible new game. The girl continued on her way, paying no mind to anyone. “What the fuck do you know about my marks, you ponce?”

The boy told him, at length and in detail. The picture he painted was not a pretty one. Neither was the bully's face, as it grew redder and snarled and uglier with each word. One of the other boys attempted to interrupt, only to become the new recipient of the observant youngster's insights, this time lambasting the kid's poor performance at sports as well as school, not to mention the mess of his home life –

“Shut the fuck up, freak!”

“Yeah, leave his mum out of it, you toffee-nosed twat!”

“Fucking bastard! Think you're the king or something, Gaylord? You ain't any better than us!”

As the boys thus expressed their sentiments so eloquently, they backed away, leaving the way they'd come.

The lanky boy, unperturbed, resumed his contemplation of the invisible.

“That was amazing. How you knew all that. Could figure all that out. Just like that – wow.”

Oh. Evidently one boy remained. The young philosopher let his lips curl into a sneer, ready to fend off the punch line of this tired set-up. But the boy said nothing more, just stared at him in admiration. Apparently honest admiration.

“Really? You think so?”

The boy nodded eagerly.

“You want to hear more?” asked the youngster.

“Yeah!”

“You're not friends with that group. You feel nothing against that girl. You only insulted her because your sister's being harassed by other kids – older ones – that you can't go after directly. Or rather, you have tried to go after them, but ended up much worse for wear yourself, without having made much dent in them. Your knee's recovered now, by the way; you don't need to limp any longer.”

The boy rubbed his shoulder, shifting his weight from side to side. “How didja know it was my sister? Do you know her?”

“No. I observed you. You were the only one shouting homophobic insults – most likely ones you've heard directed at your sister. The other boys were making derogatory remarks about the girl's appearance. You were recently in a fight, against overwhelming odds. Why would you engage in such a fight? Only to protect your honour, or your family's. If you were called names, it wouldn't be 'lezzy' or 'lesbo', and likely name-calling alone wouldn't make you fight against so many. It must have been family. If your mother were lesbian, she would have long ago taught you not to worry about such name-calling. Therefore, sister.

“It is particularly ironic,” continued the the boy still sprawled on his doorstep, relishing the word 'ironic' as it rolled off his lips, enunciating the final consonant with éclat, “considering that not only is the girl clearly not gay, but that she is attracted to you in particular.”

“Really? You think she fancies me?”

The lanky boy sighed ostentatiously. “She ignored all the other boys, but whenever you called out she turned towards you, looking very sad. She's used to the others, their taunts, but she wasn't expecting such treatment from you, and the particular form it took dismayed her, as it indicated a complete lack of interest on your part.”

“Huh.”

Silence. The lounging boy returned to gazing at the clouds, devising a possible experiment consisting of inserting various elements into a cloud of steam to determine which caused precipitation at what rates.

“Fancies me, huh.”

The young scientist startled, having forgotten the other boy was still there.

“What's your name?” the boy now asked.

“Sherlock Holmes.”

“Sherlock? Huh, that's cool. My name's boring. It's John. Is this your house, then?”

“Brilliant observation,” Sherlock scoffed.

John beamed. “Nice meeting you, Sherlock.”

“And you,” Sherlock returned, surprising himself, because it was true.

“Well, see you round!” John said as he jogged off, injured knee forgotten.

~ o ~

Some days later Sherlock was in his room, thinking. His fingers were steepled in front of his mouth, elbows propped on the only two small clear spots on his desk. The rest was littered with notes, paper, a variety of balls, books, a computer with monitor and keyboard, chocolate bar wrappers, several cans of fizzy pop, lengths of pipe of different diameters, biros, pencils, small piles of dust and dirt, bits of twine, a plate of half-eaten biscuits, a cup of cold tea, insects in various states of decay, and a nearly complete skeleton of a mouse.

He opened a third can of drink – it was a three-pop problem – and had gulped down about half when he heard a knock at the front door. He ignored it. He hadn't ordered anything to be delivered. Most likely one of boring Mycroft's equally boring friends.

“Sherlock?” called the dull Mycroft (obviously he had thought the same). “There's a 'friend' of yours at the door.” Sherlock could hear the quotes. Infuriating. Why shouldn't he have friends? He was much more fun than tedious old Mycroft, and even Mycroft had friends.

But Mycroft had put himself at a disadvantage with those quotes, and now Sherlock could take the mature route and ignore Mycroft entirely. He slid down the bannister, landing gracefully into a smooth walk through the front hall, passing his brother as though he weren't there. Sherlock then put on his brightest polite smile for his guest – the boy John from last week.

“Hello – ” was all Sherlock managed before the boy erupted.

“You were wrong, Mr Smartypants! Wrong! She doesn't like me at all!”

Sherlock thought back quickly. Ah, yes – the girl. Well, it hardly mattered, did it? Just a girl. Still, it stung being wrong. “Are you sure? How do you know?”

“She burst into tears when I talked to her!”

That did sound like a bad sign. Oh, well. Girls were tricky. Sherlock avoided them, mostly. Too hard to get them just right. “Girls are boring, anyway,” he said, by way of consolation. He looked round. Mycroft had left, his curiosity satisfied at John's outburst. Sherlock looked intently at John. “Do you want to help me build a cannon?” he asked.

John's eyes grew wide. (An intriguing shade of blue, Sherlock noted.) His face slackened from anger into that amazed admiration Sherlock remembered from before. A very appealing expression. “Really? A cannon? Really? That shoots cannonballs and everything?”

“Yes, that's the idea.” Sherlock decided to overlook the idiocy in the boy's repetition. Nearly everyone was an idiot, anyway, and the ones who weren't were boring. He'd show Mycroft – he could too have friends, and if they weren't all that smart at least they'd be fun.

“Can you really do that? A functioning cannon?”

“I certainly intend to. That's why I need your help.” Having an accomplice would make procurement of materials and testing the prototype much easier.

 

 

Later, to pass the time at the police station whilst they were waiting for their parents to pick them up, Sherlock thought about the girl again. Girls cried for all kinds of bizarre reasons – tears by themselves didn't always mean anything. “What exactly did you say to her to make her start crying?”

“Say what? To who?”

“The girl. The one you like who fancies you, too.”

“She doesn't! All I did was ask her to the school dance!”

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “You asked a girl who _uses crutches_ to a dance.”

“Oh.” John pondered this. “But I didn't mean – no one _dances_ at these things anyway. How was I – Where else do you take a girl?”

Sherlock said nothing. He was filing away the Grenville's new security system and the fixed fence at the intersection in the appropriate places in his mind castle – the war room and the map room, respectively.

“Do you think she thought I was being awful to her again?”

Sherlock nodded absently.

John sighed.

~o~

It was a month before John was allowed out of his house and to visit Sherlock again. This time he was accompanied by the girl. “Oh god,” Sherlock thought, “dull dull _dull_.” Whilst John was introducing her – Mary, a suitably dull name – he was wondering whether it was worth John's company to put up with the girl too. Then John helped Mary bring out a bag heavy with a variety of items. “Mary likes this cannon idea, too.” John said, grinning broadly.

Mary's face twisted into what Sherlock deciphered as a smile. “My mum's a pharmacist and my dad works at a hardware store. I can get hold of _loads_ of stuff.”

Well. It was always nice to be right, after all.


End file.
